The Closer is an American police drama starring Kyra Sedgwick, who plays a Deputy Chief of Police at the LAPD. Sedgwick plays Brenda Leigh Johnson, an ex-CIA interrogator. She is a southern belle and her easy going charm has surprised more than one criminal during an interrogation. She always gets the bad guys. She was put in charge of the Priority Homicide division of the LAPD.

She’s had to deal with conflict from Commander Taylor, chief of detectives, since she was promoted over him from the outside to her current position. This conflict has been resolved in season 4. Commander Taylor is now one of her staunchest allies. Her team are seasoned veterans, some close to retiring like Lt Provenza, others like Sgt Gabriel just a few years into their police careers. Daniels was promoted off the squad and this season, there is a new conflict with Captain Sharon Raydor (Mary McDonnell), who investigates any civilian deaths in officer involved shootings.

Her personal life wasn’t always as stable as it is right now. She’s currently engaged to an FBI Agent named Fritz Howard, who helps her from time to time on some cases. They’ve just sold Brenda’s bungalow and moved into a temporary space as they search for a new house to buy.

Brenda is a severe workaholic, to the sacrifice of her personal relationships. She tends to micro-manage her investigations and take a close look at details. She loves junk food and sweets but is currently trying to lay off them. She usually hides all types of junk food in drawers, purses, and other places. She is also known to be a “bit of a slob”, commenting that she does not often get around to housework every day in one episode, and in another, during a small argument between her and Fritz over where her mail was, Fritz comments that “if she looked at her mail daily instead of once a week, she would know where they keep it”.

The Closer is one of the best police dramas on television right now and is in its seventh season on TNT. Each summer sees 13 episodes. A feature length episode is shown over the holidays. For this season, the episode format has changed.

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I just read that this will be the last season of The Closer. The spin-off series adds another 6 episodes to the usual 15 of this year to lead into it. The spin-off will be called Major Crimes and will feature Captain Raydor. The decision to retire The Closer was made by Kyra Sedgwick. It’s too bad. I don’t like Raydor all that much. Still, Major Crimes has already been optioned for 10 episodes next summer. The theme for this season is love and loss.

While the case is dismissed, Goldman strikes back at the Chief with another federal lawsuit. Things are not getting better.

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

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It’s time for the trial, or the preliminaries. The whole Major Case Squad gets called to a case. The Deputy Chief leaves last. A Deputy Sheriff was just shot and killed. Gavin defends her admirably.

Some thieves stole a Maserati Quattroporte and were followed by the Sheriff and a Deputy. They recognized the Maserati from the license plate. Seems odd. The plates were standard, not vanity. It’s because the Sheriff’s department was working with a joint task force with the FBI on a ring of high-end car thieves. They put out a list each month. The Maserati was on it. The shooter escaped by carjacking a Honda. He left his 22-year old partner behind, who’s in custody.

Kyle isn’t talking. There are prints of three other known criminals on the Maserati. David Cobb is one of them.

Kyle pulls out a small firearm that was stashed in his privates with duct table. He’s about to shoot the Chief. Buzz saves her from death. Before shooting himself, he tells the camera that the bullet was meant for the Deputy Chief.

Raydor wants to speak with the Chief and Buzz. The Chief sends Tao away to continue the investigation. Provenza and Flynn are sitting on the Honda that the killer carjacked. Raydor will wait 72 hours before filing her report.

Tao matches the prints in the car with David Cobb. They go to his house. Gabriel discovers that a Sheriff’s Deputy is looking for Cobb. Burton is missing. He’s involved.

Provenza and Sanchez are gearing up for breaching Cobb’s place with SIS and undercover cops. They find Burton over Cobb’s dead body. They arrest him. Cobb was shot in the face.

Burton’s weapon wasn’t fired. Cobb was shot by the same gun as the other Deputy Sheriff.

Gavin comes to see the Chief. He says that Goldman is aware of what happened because of leak.

Both deputies wanted to be part of the Special Problems Unit. They were refused on multiple occasions. The high-tech car thieves generated a fake computer key, drove off with an expensive car, stashed it while disconnecting the GPS to see if they got away clean. Then two middlemen would come with fake customs papers and drive the car to the port, where it was sent overseas.

They were sitting on cars on their own time. They followed the Maserati after they saw the thieves generating a computer key. They followed the middlemen.

After his partner was shot, he went back to the parking lot to run the plates on Cobb’s car. Then he went looking for him. He got to his place and found Cobb dead.

The parking lot is still clean and there are a lot of stolen cars there. The thieves take an Aston Martin out of the parking lot. The squad uses a 3-car pursuit team to follow them to the port.

They get the middlemen. The cars are heading for Argentina in refrigerated cars, which is the perfect way to get cars out of the country.

The Chief spots a nearby restaurant with an Argentinian name. She thinks that the owner is the big fish. She tells Fritzi to give the dirtbags their phone calls and goes into the restaurant with Gabriels. He spooks him enough to send him running. They nab him.

The judge dismisses the case. Everyone is relieved.

Goldman wants to talk with the Chief. Pope gives him 2 minutes. He says that he filed a new case in the federal level. He is representing a few other defendants. They include a cop killer, a child molester, and a rapist. Goldman plans on putting an end to the Chief and her work.